A construction is a category.English Double-Object Construction is a complex category，with at least 12 clusters of verbs participating in it and give-cluster inheritance sentences representing the prototypical subcategory.But there are some exceptional cases that need explaining.Diachronic investigation shows that，with the deflection in Middle English，the construction began to be semantically specialized，or the category began to shrink，with at least five types of verbs dismissed from it.This process is still under way.By describing complex interaction between pragmatics，semantics and syntax involved in the language in use，the present study reveals the evolution process of the present-day English Double-Object Construction and its motivation in a broader，diachronic field of vision，dispelling some related doubts.